Shallow Waters
by windlily
Summary: Written for a writing challenge community on lj.  Will eventually be ten seperate fics centering around Hitsugaya Toushirou, each one pairing him with a different character in Bleach.
1. Inoue Orihime

**Prompt One: The Mirror is Broken**

Teary-Eyed Reflection

* * *

Hitsugaya Toushirou watched her from several feet away, characteristic frown prominent despite the poor lighting within Los Noches. She, on the other hand, was staring fixedly in the other direction, the direction in which Kurosaki Ichigo's reiatsu was flaring up against none other than Aizen Sousuke's. He held Hyourinmaru at his side. He had gained a fair amount of injury to make it this far, yet still she looked the other way.

Of course, she did. That was the way it always had been, and that was the way it always would be. Ever since he and his fukutaichou had taken up residence within the confines of her home, he had gauged what kind of woman she was. His frown deepened into a grimace. She was not that kind of woman any longer. No, rather, she was _trying_ not to be that kind of woman. Hitsugaya snorted at the thought, and this brought her back to her senses.

Inoue Orihime whirled around to face the diminutive taichou for the first time since she had left to Hueco Mundo, his zanpakutou drawn and ready. "Oh, right," she whispered heavily, as if just realizing the fact. "I'm against you now, aren't I?"

Hitsugaya eyed the dull, brown eyes questioningly. She wasn't serious, was she? "You do understand why your friends have come, do you not?" he asked, stepping forward. She nodded. "You do understand why _I_ have come, do you not?"

Inoue faltered, stepping back for each of his slow steps forward. Finally, she shook her head, and he halted.

"Why are you here?" he asked, an unexpected urgency in his voice. "Why aren't you fighting _with_ your comrades instead of _against_ them? You do not belong with Aizen."

His tone was so sure, that she almost couldn't reply. She almost went back with him through sheer lack of self-esteem. But no. She had been watching Kurosaki-kun fight arrancar after arrancar, Espada after Espada for far too long; she had to know. _Why?_ "I don't understand," she admitted, just barely managing to keep the tears in. "I don't understand at all! I don't understand any of it! He almost died! You almost died! All of you almost died! I don't understand!"

Hitsugaya knew exactly who she meant by _he_. It wasn't hard to figure out. "He faced all of Soul Society to retrieve Kuchiki. How is this any different?" he replied, his earlier urgency replaced with slight bitterness.

"I'm not Kuchiki-san!" the girl bellowed, her resolve no longer enough to hold back the tears. "So why?!"

The Tenth Division taichou's eyes narrowed sharply, and he quickly closed the space between them, grabbing Inoue's wrist as soon as he was close enough. He glared into those moist, chocolate orbs, his voice more reminiscent of the snarl of a wolf than anything else. "'Why?!' You really are the stupidest of all of that idiot substitute shinigami's friends!" he countered, the volume of his voice now matching her own. "It's _because_ you're not Kuchiki! It's because you are _Inoue Orihime_!"

"I'm _not_!" she screamed, her voice going hoarse as she frantically tried to release her arm from his grip. "I left! I left all of you! I betrayed you! I've been healing the arrancar just so they could go out and _kill_ you! It's all my fault! I helped Aizen! I left! So just go away already! Leave me alone!"

"Kurosaki, Abarai, Kuchiki, Ishida, Sado, and everyone else are all risking their lives here so that you may return home! And you're just going to ignore all of that?!" Hitsugaya hissed, his grip around her wrist only tightening. "Fine! If you're so set on siding with Aizen, you might as well kill Kurosaki yourself! I'll take you to him right now!" He yanked on her arm as she sobbingly protested and pulled her bodily out onto the balcony. But as soon as the artificial light laid itself upon her face, she snapped.

"Koten Zanshun!" she shrieked, without even realizing what she was saying. "I reject!"

Hitsugaya's eyes widened in shock as he hastily brought Hyourinmaru up to block. But Inoue's compiled anger, frustration, and fear were finally enough to fuel Tsubaki's long unfulfilled needs, and he could only watch helplessly as the blade was sliced in half, along with his body.

Inoue Orihime stared in awe, watching in slow motion as her own reflection in the intricate zanpakutou cracked before snapping in two and falling to the dusty floor. It was soon followed by a bloody corpse.

"H-Hitsu … gaya … kun?" she managed to choke out. "Hitsugaya-kun?"

Silence.

"Hitsugaya-kun!"

And suddenly, like a ton of bricks, it hit her. She scrambled over to his blood soaked body, pale white and breathing ragged, but now there was a new glint in her eyes. A determined shine that had been so dulled by her own misunderstanding. "Souten Kisshun! I reject!" she croaked, tears still running freely down her cheeks. They had stopped, but somewhere, sometime along the line, they had returned. _When?_ A strange, detached part of her mind gave her the answer even as Ayame and Shun'ou began to form their healing barrier.

Her reflection had been crying just as it shattered.

"Come on, Hitsugaya-kun!" she sobbed, putting all of her concentration, all of herself, into the healing. "You said you came to take me home! I'm ready now! I'm ready! So please! Please, wake up! I want to go home! _I want to go back home!_ So please! Hitsugaya-kun!"

"Decided to stop pretending, have you?"

Orihime's eyes darted down to the small taichou's face in shock, but when she saw his eyes open and his lips set in the smallest of smirks, she couldn't help but release a relieved chuckle of her own. "Yeah," she nodded, wiping her eyes. "Yeah."

But when she remembered what she had done, she stopped, no longer able to look him in the eye. "I … I broke your zanpakutou," she said softly, eyeing the two pieces of metal with deepening anguish.

Hitsugaya, however, said nothing. Slowly but surely, he pushed himself into a sitting position, wincing at the remnants of the near fatal wound as he did so. Leaning over, he picked up half of his zanpakutou by the hilt, and then he picked up the other half. He held them in the air, fitting the pieces together back into their original shape. He lowered his head toward the blade, but kept his eye on Orihime.

"Idiot," he grunted, smirk still firmly in place. "_Anything_ can be fixed with the right tools." And when he whispered softly to the blade, it reformed itself right in front of her eyes.

Orihime smiled a genuine smile. She hadn't done that in a long, long time. "Let's go home."

"We have to defeat Aizen first," the white crowned taichou grumbled in reply.

"Of course," she nodded as they made their way out onto the balcony a second time, raising her hands to her face in order to hide her smile. But after she said that, another thought occurred to her. "Um … Hitsugaya-kun, could I see your zanpakutou for a second?" Hitsugaya eyed her curiously before giving up Hyourinmaru.

It really was fixed, she grinned. The crack in the sword was gone and so was the crack in her reflection. Her smile only grew as she handed it back to its owner and charged ahead, waving for Hitsugaya to hurry up and laughing as he grudgingly complied.

Her reflection had broken. She no longer needed to pretend. Because she was Inoue Orihime.

And he was _Hitsugaya Toushirou_.

"Ah! But I read that when you break a mirror, you get seven years bad luck!"

"What mirror? What are you talking about?"

* * *

End


	2. Tsumugiya Ururu

**Prompt Two: House at Night**

That's Why

* * *

Hitsugaya's eyes opened wide, and he bolted into a sitting position when the sound of a scream from the house below shook him from his light slumber. He forced himself to get to his feet, waiting for someone inside to consol whoever it was who had experienced such a nightmare. But no lights came on, and Urahara Shoten was now eerily quiet. He frowned. He was only here because Matsumoto had insisted on turning their base of operations into a pig sty, and he didn't want to have to be the one to clean it … again. He wasn't exactly the type of person who broke into other people's houses, but the silence that followed that frightened wail was grating on his nerves. His gut told him it could be something important even as his brain informed him it was nothing more than some brat's bad dream.

With a sigh, he followed his gut. Maybe it was because he had just woken up, maybe it was because the screaming voice had obviously been that of a young girl's, or maybe it was simply because he had been spending too much time with Madarame and Ayasegawa. He never knew exactly why he jumped through that window and entered the second story of Urahara's home, but he did know one thing. He should've gone with his brain.

The sight that met him wasn't too surprising. The little brat with red hair was sprawled out on a futon, his pillow having long ago been chucked at some dream-hollow he had been battling. The television was still on, though the volume was low, and toys were strewn all about the room. Only a few square feet of the room was even close to being clean: a small corner isolated by a fence that looked to be a cross between a baby pen and a sheep pen. It was in that small space that the little girl who had followed Urahara around like a baby chick was sitting.

Her knees were pulled up beneath her chin, arms stretched around her legs in a tight embrace. The blanket from her own futon was draped over her head and around her shoulders, covering most of her small body in a protective layer of cotton. She wasn't looking at him, instead focusing her sight on her toes as they wiggled methodically. He believed it was safe to assume she was the one who had screamed.

Taking in a deep breath, he stepped forward. He was hesitant to do much of anything, considering the rather traumatized way the girl was acting, but he was intelligent enough to know that if he didn't do anything, neither would she. And so, no matter how much he did not like the idea, stepped forward again. And again and again, until he was finally standing directly in front of the make-shift pen.

Slowly the little girl raised her head, large, gray-blue eyes focusing on his own teal. She curled into herself a bit more, but she didn't release that gaze. Hitsugaya wasn't quite sure what to make of it. Brows furrowing ever so slightly, he crouched down to her height. Her eyes followed him through the motion, but still she said nothing.

It wasn't long before he realized he would have to be the one to initiate the conversation. _Joy._ "Er … Are you alright?" he managed, cocking his head to get a better view of the girl's face hidden beneath her blanket.

She shook her head.

Hitsugaya's patience was beginning to ware thin. He was not good at this sort of thing. And the fact that she was so adamant about making it even harder for him was not helping. "Did you … have a nightmare?" he hazarded.

This time it was a nod.

"I see…" _Well_, he tried to be optimistic about all of this, _at least she didn't seem to mind his breaking-and-entering._ Nope. Optimism wasn't working. With a weary sigh, he stood up straight once again. "Well, whatever it was, it's gone now, okay?"

A head shake.

Hitsugaya frowned at this. And, with the damn-it-all attitude of the truly defeated, he stepped into the pen and plopped down next to her. He refused to look her in the eye again, instead leaning his back against her side. "Tell me about it."

The little girl stared at his back, eyes wide at the sudden action. She didn't even really know him; he was just that shinigami that had been fighting the arrancar. She sniffed. "Kisuke-san's gone," she finally vocalized.

Ah, Hitsugaya finally understood. That was why no one had come to comfort her. He was sure Urahara would have if he had been there to do so. He was quite the man. Hitsugaya would never understand his near bi-polar personality and erratic tendencies, but he seemed to have a surprising soft spot for certain characters. This girl, he was certain, was one of them. "He'll be back," he told her firmly.

"He … He's always doing so much to fix everything, even when it's not his fault," she continued softly. He could barely hear her over his own breathing. "Even when it's my fault. He always fixes it. But what if…" A light sob restricted her throat, keeping her from finishing.

"You know," Hitsugaya replied, his voice almost as soft as hers, "I know someone like that too." Her eyes widened once again at the statement, and she didn't even bother to replace the blanket over her head when it began to dip. Hitsugaya still refused to look at her, allowing himself a peek at the stars through the window before he went on. "She's not really the sort of person that society accepts easily, and she's hard to handle at times, but when something's wrong, she'll do everything in her power to find out what it is and how to deal with it. If someone's upset, she takes it upon herself to change that, and if someone's in trouble she'll do whatever she can to make things right. Even if she doesn't know _why_ that person was in such a situation in the first place. Even during a fight. When she thinks no one is looking, she'll sweat and she'll cry and she'll see everything in the worst possible light, but as soon as she knows someone is watching, she'll look at them with such a reassuring grin that they'll have no doubt she'll win, even if they already know otherwise."

The little girl was entranced at the shinigami's words, finding them to match Kisuke so well that she couldn't believe he was talking about a different person. What he said next, though, was what really riveted her.

"But, you know, people like that, they tend to not notice their own problems as much. They spend so much of their time focusing on fixing other people's mistakes, that their own are never solved. Those problems just grow and grow until they consume the person. So while they spend their time solving everyone else's problems, they need a few of those people to return and solve _their_ problems for them. That's why, no matter what happens, Urahara will return. You don't have anything to worry about."

She didn't really know what he was saying, but she was already feeling better. She had let her blanket droop all the way past her shoulders, looking up at the back of Hitsugaya's head as he spoke. "Kisuke-san will definitely be back?" she implored, fighting to keep another sob at bay.

"Yeah," he replied with a bit of an amused chuckle. Finally, he turned around to face her. His lips were curved awkwardly at one end as if to convey an emotion even he couldn't quite identify, and his brows had unforrowed to a more friendly height. "Because when his problems get to be too much for him to handle, he knows that there's someone who can fix them, right here in this house."

Her cheeks flushed a light pink as he reached out and patted her gently on the top of her head, just as Kisuke had done so many times before. So when he stood up to leave once again, she couldn't help but grab his haori to stop him. He looked down at her oddly, not sure what to do until her cheeks burned an even brighter shade, and she asked, "Can … Can you stay here tonight? U-Until Kisuke-san gets back?"

He sighed. But he supposed anything was better than going back and having a certain Tenth Division fukutaichou try to solve all of his problems again. "Alright," he huffed. "Just for the night."

And it was a very amused Urahara Kisuke who stepped into the room early that morning to see his little Ururu happily cuddled up against Hitsugaya Toushirou's chest.

* * *

Sweet Dreams


End file.
